‘Echo Park’ another winner in Connelly’s Bosch novels

“Echo Park”

by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown, 416 pages, $26.99)

Longevity is not the full measure of a suspense writer – or any writer, for that matter.

But there’s something to be said for a creative mind that explores the boundaries of the mystery genre over the long haul, mining it for depth and structure while introducing new situations, fresh insight and compelling puzzles to be solved.

Michael Connelly continues his winning streak with his 12th Harry Bosch novel, “Echo Park.” Connelly could teach a course in keeping a series lively and addictive; his Bosch novels blessedly maintain high-quality prose, absorbing explorations of crime and justice and a profoundly moving sense of melancholy.

So it’s no surprise that “Echo Park” is breathtakingly suspenseful as well as keenly perceptive of the psychology of its characters – particularly Vietnam vet Bosch, the L.A.P.D. detective who believes “Everybody matters or nobody matters” but is not above meting out his brand of justice.

Connelly revisits the familiar serial killer vs. law enforcement-nemesis conflict, but he never allows “Echo Park” to read like a retread.

Bosch is settling into the job he started in “The Closers,” working in the Open-Unsolved unit with his former partner, Kiz Rider. He’s the perfect cold-case investigator because the past never stops troubling him. One case has haunted him for 13 years: the murder of young Marie Gesto, who disappeared en route to an afternoon of horseback riding. Her body was never found.

When Bosch learns another unit is reopening the case in hopes of bargaining with smirking serial killer Raynard Waits, he is torn by conflict. He has always needed to find Marie’s killer, mostly but not solely to offer her family solace. But the price for closing the case is saving Waits from the death penalty, and the idea sickens him.

Connelly is not squeamish about Bosch’s hard-line, eye-for-an-eye beliefs or examining how they have shaped him as a cop – and as a human being.

The author is equally skilled at illustrating the outrageously complex and frustrating police department politics and at building shivery tension, especially in one explosive scene in which Waits leads cops, politicians and a camera crew into the woods to exhume Marie’s remains.

It’s an unforgettable setpiece, but not the only one in “Echo Park,” one of those books that makes you happy just to be alive to read it.